Simeprevir for the treatment of hepatitis C and HIV/hepatitis C co-infection. Issue 6 (November 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Flanagan, Stuart; Crawford-Jones, Andrew; Orkin, Chloe
• Is Part Of: Expert review of clinical pharmacology. Volume 7:Issue 6(2014)
• Page Start: 691
• Page End: 704
• Publication Date: 2014-11
• Subjects: Clinical pharmacology -- Periodicals; 615.105
• DOI: 10.1586/17512433.2014.956091
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1751-2433

Abstract

<abstract> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <p>Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of chronic hepatitis in 170 million people worldwide and can progress to fibrosis, cirrhosis, liver failure and hepatocellular carcinoma, a disease process accelerated in HIV co-infection. Approximately 25% of HIV infected people are co-infected with HCV (worldwide prevalence 4–5 million) and up to 16.7% of deaths in this population are attributable to HCV co-infection. Previous treatment options for HCV were limited to pegylated interferon and ribavirin (PEG-IFN/RBV), a combination that demonstrated lower successful cure rates in genotype 1 HCV mono-infection and HIV/HCV co-infection, and is also associated with a considerable adverse side-effect profile. The development of directly acting antivirals (DAAs) offers the first class of drug to achieve good viral suppression in previously hard-to-treat patient groups. We review the benefits, tolerability and drug interactions with concomitant drugs of the DAA simeprevir for patients who have HCV mono-infection and hep C/HIV co-infection.</p> </abstract>